Same as the Old Boss?

California's term limits are under a legal cloud in the federal courts. But what, if anything, has Prop. 140 changed in Sacramento?

Steven Hayward from the December 1997 issue

(Page 2 of 4)

* Term limits will produce a "citizen legislature" of more ordinary people rather than professional politicians. Term-limited representatives would be more in harmony with public opinion and with their districts' constituents.

* Term limits will reduce the influence of special interests by disrupting the buddy-buddy relationships and favors that lobbyists use to capture entrenched incumbents.

* Term limits might even reduce the growth rate of government, at least on the congressional level, where studies have shown that the longer legislators are in office, the more spending and bureaucracy they tend to support.

The main arguments against term limits reduce to these two:

* Term limits will produce an inexperienced, amateur legislature. Term-limited officeholders will have little motivation for the long term and will be looking to advance themselves quickly into higher office.

* Inexperienced legislators will be easy prey for special interests; bureaucrats and permanent staff will dominate them.

Not all of these claims can be objectively assessed, of course, but the weight of the available evidence, and the common-sense perception of the matter, appears to fall on the side of term limit advocates.

First of all, it was not necessary to wait until 1997 to discern the impact of term limits. Some of the intended effects were felt immediately after passage of Prop. 140 in 1990. One of the highest-ranking Assembly Democrats, Mike Roos, scarcely concealing the personal insult he felt, resigned for a job in the private sector (albeit at a nonprofit educrat boondoggle), while two senior senators (one Republican, one Democrat) resigned to become highly paid association heads (a.k.a. lobbyists). Most notably, Willie Brown left halfway through his last term to become mayor of San Francisco and in doing so surrendered full control of the Assembly to the Republicans.

I have long thought this direct insult to politicians' egregious egos was the best aspect of term limits. As Henry Adams observed, "The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self...one can scarcely use expressions too strong to describe the violence of egotism it stimulates." Term limits send the tacit message that none of these officeholders is indispensable to the future security and progress of our republic. The lifetime ban of California's term limits underscores this insult, which has prompted countless silly comments from aggrieved legislators. Sen. Bill Craven said, apparently without any trace of irony, "This places legislators in the same category as felons." (Whether the anti-term limit lawsuit is decided by the full 9th Circuit or the Supreme Court, the lifetime ban will likely be the main issue.)

As the first elections after Prop. 140 approached, numerous other legislators either retired early or ran for higher office, thus clearing out a larger number of seats than usual. The trend was encouraged not just by term limits but also by a fair reapportionment in 1991, which produced more swing districts. During the 1980s, the overall turnover rate in the Assembly was 16 percent (the second lowest of all 50 states--only New York was worse), and 85 percent of incumbents sought re-election in each cycle. Incumbents were a virtual lock for re-election. In the two elections leading up to 1996, the Assembly turnover rate increased to 36 percent, and the share of incumbents seeking re-election dropped to 67 percent. More women and minorities were elected. There was a similar shakeout in the state Senate. Elections have become more competitive. The number of candidates filing to run has increased significantly, and the margins of victory in both primary and general elections have narrowed.

This post-term limit ferment contributed to the Republican takeover of the Assembly in 1994, the first time in a quarter century the Democrats lost control of that house. The election of 1994 featured 22 open Assembly seats (out of a total of 80), far higher than in any election during the 1980s. Though the 1991 reapportionment and the national Republican tidal wave in 1994 likely were more important than term limits, the narrow takeover probably wouldn't have happened without the additional open seats that term limits produced.

Even though California's legislature is the highest paid in the nation (members get over $100,000 a year in salary, per diem, and other perks), thus making it a virtual incubator for career politicians, the term limit environment does seem to be producing more people who fit the description of "citizen-legislator," with many more members having business experience, especially small-business experience, than was typical in the 1980s. Nearly a quarter of the legislators (23.7 percent) now claim to have had experience as business owners, up from 8 percent in 1976 and 10 percent in 1986. The number of former city council members, school board members, and other local elected officials has quadrupled. Most notable has been the marked decrease in the number of former staff people moving up to Assembly and Senate seats. The ranks used to be peppered with former staff people, the apotheosis of cronyism. There are none among the newest crop of legislators. (There are still plenty of lawyers, alas.) The influx has certainly given the capitol a new look and feel. It is commonplace for freshman Assembly members to be committee chairs.

While Republicans in the legislature continue to be a mix of rock-ribbed conservatives and chamber-of-commerce moderates, term limits seem to have produced a higher number of moderate Democrats, less beholden to the party's liberal leadership and interest groups. Most of these new moderates come from California's Central Valley, where agricultural interests reign supreme. Valley farm interests are considered "pro-business" but of course depend on water socialism and subsidies, and they tend to support Democrats as often as Republicans. As one veteran Republican legislator told me, "the new Democrats are more tolerant of private enterprise than their '60s radical predecessors, who dominated the legislature under Brown."

It was the reservations of moderate Democrats about the party's position on welfare reform that divided Democrats in this year's budget battle. The Democratic leadership wanted to hold out for a very liberal "reform" plan (i.e., no reform at all), but several moderate Democrats balked. This division strengthened Gov. Pete Wilson's hand, which enabled him to drive a compromise welfare reform plan that many conservatives think was a sellout but which is probably more than he would have gotten had Willie Brown still been in charge.

The current legislature is certainly "inexperienced" compared to its predecessors. The Sacramento press corps, which doesn't like term limits any better than veteran lobbyists do, has produced one story after another about "rookie mistakes" by new legislators. The new members are "inept at the basics of politics," a San Francisco Chronicle reporter wrote. Ross Sargent, the longtime chief of staff to Sen. Pat Johnston (D-Stockton), complains of rookie legislators that "you talk to them and say, `That [idea] was here five or 10 years ago,' and they express surprise." Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), president pro tem of the Senate, circulated a memo to the Assembly offering tips on how to "work" legislation, a move political junkies pounced upon as an unheard-of step made necessary by term limits. The new Assembly speaker, Cruz Bustamante (D-Fresno), is in his final term and is widely perceived to be extremely weak because of term limits.